Transparency on third party software

Hello. After 4 years and about 800h of casual playing this game i got banned, reason - using of prohibited third party software. At first i thought it was joke or misunderstanding and then my ban appeal was denied...
Only software i was using this league was ''Awakened POE Trade'' for price checking and map mods checking. It felt a bit shitty, because i saw tons of streamers and youtubers using it and recommend to others. I tried to contact support to get confirmation - that using ''Awakened POE Trade'' is prohibited, but they avoid answering any of my questions and called it ''pure speculations''. Sync it is not allowed to post any e-mails correspondent with GGG Support team I can only tell from my own words.
In one e-mail I got replied from Support Team, that GGG have policy not to release evidence regarding account ban, as that enables people to avoid detection second time around. Release what evidence? I didn`t ask for any evidence, i admitted, that i was using this tool and all i was asking is a confirmation...
There was one e-mail from support team, that clarified a bit and it said, that GGG do not encourage the creation or use of third-party tools at all because they provide advantages for players that use them, and due to the dynamics of their policies, GGG unable to guarantee if a tool is allowed or would remain allowed in the future.
It felt weird, that you can get slammed with ban without any warning, especially if GGG admit, that their politics are so dynamic, but i guess there is nothing you can do about it.
Now its been over a month and i still see content creators using ''Awakened POE Trade'' without any fear of been banned. So my question to GGG is - where is transparency? Why some players get different approach than others? And i do understand, that the answer may be - ''We do not discuss any ban details on forum, please contact....'', so i already contacted support and thy couldn't answer any of my questions, neither they can confirm, nor deny, that it was due to ''Awakened POE Trade'', so where should players get their answers?

P.s. Point of this post is not to put any shadow on ''Awakened POE Trade''. Tool is great and really helpful.

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Willofthewsips7 wrote:

Hello. After 4 years and about 800h of casual playing this game i got banned, reason - using of prohibited third party software. At first i thought it was joke or misunderstanding and then my ban appeal was denied...
Only software i was using this league was ''Awakened POE Trade'' for price checking and map mods checking. It felt a bit shitty, because i saw tons of streamers and youtubers using it and recommend to others. I tried to contact support to get confirmation - that using ''Awakened POE Trade'' is prohibited, but they avoid answering any of my questions and called it ''pure speculations''. Some of support team e-mails seemed completely ridiculous, for example:
[Removed by Support]

It felt weird, that you can get slammed with ban without any warning, especially if GGG admit, that their politics are so dynamic, but i guess there is nothing you can do about it.
Now its been over a month and i still see content creators using ''Awakened POE Trade'' without any fear of been banned. So my question to GGG is - where is transparency? Why some players get different approach than others? And i do understand, that the answer may be - ''We do not discuss any ban details on forum, please contact....'', so i already contacted support and thy couldn't answer any of my questions, neither they can confirm, nor deny, that it was due to ''Awakened POE Trade'', so where should players get their answers?

P.s. Point of this post is not to put any shadow on ''Awakened POE Trade''. Tool is great and really helpful.

Well GGG policy have been clear for a long time --> don't use any 3 party software.
The same goes for any questions regarding 3 party software or why an account was banned. GGG will not answer this since they feel it helps "cheaters" avoid detection.....

Now I haven't personally used the tool you talked about, but several years ago I tried a "3 party tool" and quickly saw that it had functions in it that was CLEARLY against ToS --> like macro support, automation and so on.
Yes I also only used the price check function but these "illegal" functions were still there and active per default.

Regarding 3. party software ban's then it can also be from software from your keyboard / mouse vendor that again allows key macro's and things like that.

Now we come to the core of the problem. A normal player and a high value Streamer is treated differantly by GGG (this has been proven many times). Sadly this is how GGG is "doing business" and nothing can be done about this....

[/quote]

Well GGG policy have been clear for a long time --> don't use any 3 party software.
The same goes for any questions regarding 3 party software or why an account was banned. GGG will not answer this since they feel it helps "cheaters" avoid detection.....

Now I haven't personally used the tool you talked about, but several years ago I tried a "3 party tool" and quickly saw that it had functions in it that was CLEARLY against ToS --> like macro support, automation and so on.
Yes I also only used the price check function but these "illegal" functions were still there and active per default.

Regarding 3. party software ban's then it can also be from software from your keyboard / mouse vendor that again allows key macro's and things like that.

Now we come to the core of the problem. A normal player and a high value Streamer is treated differantly by GGG (this has been proven many times). Sadly this is how GGG is "doing business" and nothing can be done about this....[/quote]

Helps "cheaters" avoid detection? What detection? Me in person and a lot of players using these tools without knowing, that they fall under ToS. Wouldn`t clarification or simple warning at first on these questions help to avoid unnecessary bans?
I don`t have any keyboard / mouse vendor that again allows key macro's and things like that, i haventt even used any macros...

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Willofthewsips7 wrote:

Helps "cheaters" avoid detection? What detection? Me in person and a lot of players using these tools without knowing, that they fall under ToS. Wouldn`t clarification or simple warning at first on these questions help to avoid unnecessary bans?
I don`t have any keyboard / mouse vendor that again allows key macro's and things like that, i haventt even used any macros...

Sadly again it's GGG policy not to issue "warnings" to account owners for any reason. Your account either gets banned or locked depending what's the "issue" is and that's it......

Everyone asking GGG about 3 party tools gets the same answer -->
GGG advices that no 3 party tools are used since this could get your account banned.

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HanSoloDK wrote:

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Willofthewsips7 wrote:

Everyone asking GGG about 3 party tools gets the same answer -->
GGG advices that no 3 party tools are used since this could get your account banned.

The main problem is that end of Your sentence ''could get''. Why some players get banned, and others don`t, for using same tools? This sound like that amazing ''Bling Chris Wilson Exalted slam'', just close your eyes and ban players, they would not be able to prove anything anyway, because we will not get them any information...
I remember laughing on Bethesda, when years ago there was news, that they asked players to write essay on ''why cheating is bad'' to Faloout 76 players... Now even that make more sense than GGG, hiding any information from you regarding your own ban and explaining it quote to quote ''not to release evidence''.

It's makes perfect sense from their end.

Why tell the people making the bots/programs etc exactly what got them banned so they then can turn around and make a better bot??

It's not that difficult to understand.

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Aragorn14 wrote:

It's makes perfect sense from their end.

Why tell the people making the bots/programs etc exactly what got them banned so they then can turn around and make a better bot??

It's not that difficult to understand.

It`s not difficult to understand what exactly? I am confident, that people, who are using bots are 100% sure, why they got banned and they don`t need any confirmation to make their programs better. It`s common sense.
The problem is when you get banned, and the only app you were using - is something, that community members are actively using and some content makers are recommending. And GGG support cant even deny, that it was the reason of your ban.

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Willofthewsips7 wrote:

It`s not difficult to understand what exactly? I am confident, that people, who are using bots are 100% sure, why they got banned and they don`t need any confirmation to make their programs better. It`s common sense.
The problem is when you get banned, and the only app you were using - is something, that community members are actively using and some content makers are recommending. And GGG support cant even deny, that it was the reason of your ban.

Well I would advice you to check out your contry's legal options here / consumer protection laws since GGG policy will not change before they are forced to.....

You could also check with NZ consumer protection if GGG policy / ToS is "legal".

They are not going to tell you anything other than don't use them even if some of them are currently OK and don't break previously stated rules.

Prime example is awakend poe trade.

This add on has been fine for almost all of it's life, been used for years by many

But (and i stress this IS NOT the reason why you got banned) at some point a few years back the programmer responsible for it made some changes that ended up being abused by a handful of players which effectively DDoS'd the trade API effecting everyone playing the game and trying to trade.

It's resulted in mass bans (even though they did try to warn people) while they investigated the problem, they then lifted almost all the bans once they narrowed down the issue to a hand full of players that were perma banned.

Since that the addon was changed again so it could not effect the game in the same way and was fine (it dose not result in bans, and if it did you would see literal pages of posts about the bans)

This is why they no longer tell you if something is OK, because if it was it dose not always mean it will be and they are not going to waste time and money dealing with people trying to argue back that they said it was ok 10 years ago when functionality was difrent.